Kilo Class

such grandiose plans, they found themselves stuck with a couple of fucking great carriers, both half-finished, in a shipyard in the Ukraine they no longer even owned. By this time they were just about bust. Terrible things happened — like the town threatened to cut off the power supply to the shipyard. No one was getting paid, and naturally the new carriers were more or less abandoned.”

“Jesus. Yeah, I remember. Remind me, what were they called?”

“There was the Varyag, which I think they got rid of locally, and there was the Admiral Gudenko. And she’s still sitting right there at the Chernomorsky Shipyard in Nikolayev while the governments of Russia and the new Ukraine argue about who owns her, and who’s going to pay for her completion. The answers to both questions are the same: no one. Which has been a major blow to the local shipbuilding industry. People ended up almost starving in that town.”

“And?”

“Not much happened for a long time. The Admiral Gudenko had been launched, but she was covered in scaffold, and they eventually moved her out to one of the unused piers in the south of the yard, where no one much goes. Then someone had a brainstorm — let’s sell her to some country that will pay for her completion. Who was the first name on the list?”

“China, as we know.”

“Right. They wanted her, but they could not really afford her, thank Christ. And again things went a bit quiet. But we just learned yesterday that terms have finally been agreed, and China will buy the Admiral Gudenko, for around two billion US dollars. Which you can guess is sensational news all around in Nikolayev and effectively puts the yard right back in business. We learned, however, that there is one condition on which this huge order depends.”

“Oh no,” groaned Joe Mulligan. “They gotta deliver the last seven Kilos?”

“You got it.”

Admiral Mulligan shook his head. “I assume the State Department is pulling all its strings?”

“Sure are. Travis had the Russian ambassador and two Naval attaches in there early this morning. Read ’em a kind of velvet-coated riot act. I understand he was planning to try all kinds of persuasion, trade agreements, and God knows what else. I also understand that none of it worked.”

“Bob MacPherson was talking to someone in Moscow round about the time I was leaving for Norfolk,” Admiral Mulligan said.

“I had a talk myself with an old sparring partner in the Russian Navy at 0400 this morning,” added Morgan. “Admiral Vitaly Rankov. Used to be head of their Intelligence. He’s pretty high up in the Kremlin now, and he knew all about the problem. Even said if it was left up to him, he would not risk alienating the United States by fulfilling that order for the Kilos. Unhappily, it is not left up to him.”

“Arnold, what do you think the chances are of dissuading the Russians?”

“I think we might have a shot at stalling them for a short time, while we talk about it some more. But in the end no Russian president is going to risk the wrath of the entire Ukrainian nation by scuttling the Chinese order for the big carrier. I’d say the completion of the Admiral Gudenko represents a kind of Slavic ‘mission critical.’

“They gotta build the fucking Kilos. Whatever we might say. Also, I hear the Chinese are paying three hundred million US dollars each for those boats. That’s a hell of a lot of dough for an impoverished Russian shipping industry. We know at least two of them are almost ready for delivery — the ones up near Murmansk — and five more are under construction, in two different yards.”

Joe Mulligan frowned. “I don’t suppose the situation is helped any by the endless bullshit between Russia and Ukraine over the remnants of the Black Sea Fleet. It’s been going on for ten years, and in my view will keep on going until the ships rust to bits. I can’t think of a single thing they ever managed to agree on except that Russia will somehow lease the big base at Sevastopol, and the Ukrainians will build some kind of a headquarters up in Balaclava Bay.”

“You’re right, Joe. Ever since Ukraine decided to put together a Navy of her own, we hear every few months about a major agreement between the two Navies. Then it gets blown out of the water by the politicians. Moscow and Kiev, deadlocked again. Right here we have two near-penniless countries arguing like hell over warships neither of ’em can afford to run.”

“That’s correct, Arnie. But they both know they have to preserve a spirit of goodwill and cooperation. And I agree with you: that aircraft carrier project with the Chinese in Nikolayev will go ahead. The only way either Navy can survive is to export ships for cash.”

“Right. And the most commercial property is the Kilo Class submarine. Every Third World despot wants one. Or three.”

“Or ten.”

Just then the telephone rang and the call was for Admiral Morgan. He picked it up, and both Admiral Mulligan and Commander Dunning suppressed laughter as the new NSA rasped, “Yeah right, George. Forget the geography lesson. I know where the fucking place is…” Morgan then regained his composure and demanded, “Give it to me straight and quick, George. No bullshit. We are dealing right here with the topic of the week, if not the year.”

“Yeah…right…fuck it.” At which point Admiral Morgan replaced the receiver and, turning to the CNO, reported, “That was about that damned freighter we spotted in the Malacca Strait.

“She’s under escort running northeast, about four hundred miles into the South China Sea. We got some decent measurements on her. Whatever’s under the cover on the deck is exactly two hundred and forty feet long, the exact length of a Kilo.

“They put one over on us this time. Still, we couldn’t have done much about it, save for instigating an act of war. You wanna nail a submarine, you wanna get the sonofabitch under the water. That way there’s less chance anyone knows what the hell’s going on.”

“Anyhow,” said Joe Mulligan, “the Chinese now have three Kilos. And there’s not a whole lot we can do about that. I suspect our new preoccupation will be the other seven. And since we are almost certainly looking at a potential Black Operation, I suggest we give ’em a name. The two at Pol’arnyj…right now I guess they gotta be K-4 and K-5.”

It now occurred to Boomer Dunning that Columbia was being designated the Black Ops submarine in the US Navy — the one no one knew about, not where it was, or where it was headed. That way, if it disappeared, it would be a long time before its demise became common knowledge. Maybe never, since most of the time its whereabouts were unknown anyway. Boomer’s thoughts began to wander out to the deep dark waters in which he and his team operated on behalf of this nation. The sudden voice of Arnold Morgan took him by surprise.

“I’d say we’ve just about reached the point where we’re gonna need a plan,” he was saying. “Since Boomer here is the man we want to carry out the operation I guess he might as well start work on it.”

“Right, sir,” said Boomer. “As far as I can see there are three quite definitive possibilities. One: the submarines have never dived, therefore the Chinese crews and their Russian advisers are planning to head home on the surface, which makes life very simple for us. Two: they plan to dive the boats in the not-too-distant future, then spend around three weeks training for basic safety and operational procedures, and head home probably dived some of the way. Not much of a problem there for us either.

“Three: the Chinese plan to wait out the winter working up in the Barents Sea, which does not freeze, and then head home as a fully operational, combat-ready unit, prepared to fight and defend against any enemy. I don’t like this last possibility nearly so much.”

“You got it, Boomer,” said Admiral Morgan. “You got it right there. If it’s number one, we don’t have a problem. We can catch ’em anywhere down the Atlantic. If it’s two we’ll have to keep our eyes open and have Columbia on station ready to strike. If it’s three, that’ll just be two to the power of ten. Meantime, if it’s okay with you, Joe, I’d like Boomer to work on that — the trap for K-4 and K-5. I just don’t want one more of those damn things to reach Chinese waters. Three’s all they’re getting.”

“Right. Boomer will stay here, make a preliminary plan, and bring it back when he’s done,” said Mulligan. “You probably want to get back to the White House and inform the President we will now need his formal approval.”

“He’s more anxious than anyone. That’s not going to be difficult. We’ll talk later.”

Arnold Morgan headed out the door, onto corridor seven, swung left onto E-Ring, the great circular outer-